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To start, I have owned this car over 20 years. I have driven it over 70,000 miles, not all trouble free, but fun. I got it as a parts car and repaired everything on it.
It took over 4 years to get it from parts car to driver. It is not a show queen but a daily driver.
When I bought it, the front grill was complete, I thought. The upper grill piece was missing the outside 'loops' to hold the ends to the fender. I have bought new upper grill pieces and noticed I am missing the part that goes from the side chrome piece through the front grill piece to the fender. It looks like it hooks to the side chrome piece and goes through the front grill piece to the fender.
The parts book does not show me how it goes.
Can some one post a picture of how this goes together?

The first picture was taken 15 years ago as the after.
The second pictures is the before picture as I found it in north Phoenix in 1998.

I have 5 other Packards,
one is Debi's 53 Patrician in another blog.
I have a 40 160 Sedan (running)
A 2nd 55 Clipper (with a blown head gasket, but it runs and needs everything)
A 48 Limo (141" wheelbase), doing brakes and need to put engine back together (the machine work is done).
A 48 Sedan its a parts car.

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Here are the pictures of the side chrome piece. All the holes have threads to hold a screw. The one near the grill is just a hole. I never had the piece for that part.
Is is a hook with threads on the end or what?
If you have a picture, please share it.

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Have you looked at the photos in the service manual, section X, Fenders and Sheet Metal? There are several photos of the grill assy and how it mounts in that section. The long side pieces have studs which thread in the tapped holes in the diecast and pass thru the fender holes. There is a rubber washer and either a flat washer and regular hex nut or in some cases a one piece stamped sheet metal nut which has a integral flange to take the place of the flat washer.

Howard,
It says,"To remove the grille assembly, it is first necessary to remove the fender side mouldings to gain access to the corner retaining bolts."
It is these 'corner retaining bolts' that I am not sure about.
I thought that these bolts should hook to the fender side moulding to secure that as well.

As I recall the side piece ends just go over the bolt on the corner piece with the end sliding under the corner piece a tiny amount to hold and hide the raw end of the side piece. The diecast is very rigid and not too far away from the end is the first stud.

Figure 3 of section X shows what they call an upper corner bolt that appears to be a hex head bolt already in place. The side piece is uninstalled and I don't believe there is anything else that can mount to the bolt or any way to access the corner bolt to tighten it if the side piece was on and fastened down.

One thing I can say is that due to tolerances there can be a gap between the bolt hole tab on the corner piece and the fender. If the bolt is tightened down with the gap the tab can crack or break off which, if someone didn't try to remove the grill not knowing there was a corner bolt to remove first, could also have been what happened to your original grill. If you run into that gap situation strongly suggest you add washers or shims between the tab and fender so the tab cannot be pulled down and break.

Thanks, now I'm waiting for my new chrome pieces.

Nice looking Clipper, Duane!! I just picked up a Panama. needs some love. I'm thinking about fixing the brakes and just enjoying it for awhile. I'll start my blog soon. Wish me luck!!

I might just start now with working on my Packards and just staying with this blog.
This episode I drove my 1940 160 Touring Sedan to a Club party here in Arizona. The car ran great to the party. It started up fine for the trip home, then I turned on the headlights and they didn't come on. I got a tow home, because you need headlights to drive at night.
I checked out the dimmer switch and it works fine. I have voltage turning on and off at the terminal block on the fender, but no headlights.
I pulled off the headlight bucket to check the headlights and I can't remember how to pull the outer ring out. So that's where I'm going to restart this blog.
Yes, I will add stuff about the 55 Clipper, when it needs work. Right now it is running fine. I did sell the 2nd 55 Clipper, so I am down to 5 Packards, 2 running, 2 needing work, and 1 is still a parts car.
So with the 40 160, I have 3 pictures. 1 for the headlamp bucket. 1 for page 35 in the manual of Fig 23 removing the headlamp outer rim. and the last one for the instructions on how to remove the outer ring. I have forgotten how. Can you help? I thought I would stop there before I do any damage.

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Duane, very nice Clipper. Love the colors. If you put that together from a parts car, and drove it 70K miles, you definitely did a great job rebuilding it.

Now for the latest problem. The torsion-level system. I noticed it was stuck with the back end up. I checked the compensator and I could move the car up and down. So I bought a new compensator. Now the car goes down until it stops. Before it would go up until it stopped. I moved the wire in the attached picture and the car back end still goes down until it stops. I thought the wire could be touching whatever that is on the torsion-level transmission. Could the limit switch be bad? The connections are all tight. Is it easy to replace? The car is currently sitting with the front tires on a car ramp and the rear axle on jack stands, so it is pretty safe to go under it.

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